Tragedy Squared
by ProWriter11
Summary: Sara returns for Warrick's funeral, a sad reunion that sets the stage for another tragedy. Major GSR!
1. Chapter 1

I've never posted to this site before, though I have done two earlier CSI stories that were posted elsewhere. As a professional writer, I generally only write what I'm getting paid for, but this was a nice diversion last weekend when I got sick of the book I'm ghosting for a client. This isn't a long story; I finished the writing in about two hours. But I'll dole it out in pieces, which seems to be SOP here.

I neither own nor have any rights to CSI or its characters. But occasionally they come live in my head, and I'm thinking of charging rent.

The story should be rated M.

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**TRAGEDY SQUARED**

**Chapter 1**

Grissom heard her sharp gasp and then nothing. For perhaps 45 seconds, Sara was silent on the other end of the connection, and Grissom knew she was trying to process the horrific news that Warrick had been injured fatally at the hand of an unknown gunman. He didn't interrupt her. He had been trying to process the news for more than an hour himself, and he wasn't having any luck, either. Warrick dead. For no reason anyone could discern at the moment. Maybe for no fucking reason at all except he happened to be in the very wrong place at the very wrong time. At least that's what Greg kept saying, over and over, as if trying to convince himself.

Grissom didn't believe it for a second. There was a mole in the department, and it wasn't the cop who helped frame Warrick for Gedda's murder. It went much deeper than one patrolman. Much higher.

"What happened?" Sara's question came through the phone almost inaudibly. Her voice cracked. Grissom heard it and winced. He told her the story.

"The team was with him when he died?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "All but one, and she didn't know."

If Sara heard and understood Grissom's words, she let them slide. "When's the funeral?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"I want to come back for it."

"I thought you might. When you book your flight, let me know. I'll pick you up at the airport."

Silence again. Grissom felt a tightness in his chest. He knew Sara was making decisions, and if she had to think about them, it wasn't a good sign.

"No," she said, finally. "I'll catch a hotel shuttle."

The ache in Grissom's chest deepened, but he wasn't going to pressure her. Still, he wanted her to know she was welcome.

"Honey, you don't have to stay in a hotel," he said. "I understand if you don't want to sleep in a bed with me. You don't have to. I'll take the couch."

"No. Thank you, anyway," she said.

"Will you call me when you get here?" he said.

He waited for an answer for half a minute before he realized the line had gone dead.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Sara finally called early the next afternoon after Grissom had spent the better part of five hours pacing his house, wondering where she was and why she was so reluctant to be near him. Even if she wasn't ready to come back for good, this was a chance for them to talk, for him to measure where she was in her recovery and what she wanted to make of their future – assuming they even had a future. More and more he was coming to question whether she wanted that any more, whether she wanted him any more. And his fears were tearing him apart.

As they talked, Grissom thought Sara sounded incredibly sad, but he could dismiss that since they were all sad. The viewing at the funeral home was from 4 to 6 that afternoon, and Warrick's funeral was at 10 a.m. the next day. Sadness was assaulting the entire team.

"Where are you?" Grissom asked.

"I'm staying at The Tropicale," Sara said. "Catherine got the room for me. Sam Braun had an interest in the hotel, and she got it comped for me. Nick's going to pick me up and take me to the funeral home later."

He bit his lip and frowned a little. She was letting everyone take care of her but him. Even Catherine, who was so ravaged by her own grief that she was having trouble taking care of herself.

"Will you have dinner with me tonight?" he asked.

"Brass says we're all going out together," she said. "A wake, I guess."

Grissom remembered then that Brass had set it up. A private room at the Bellagio. Brass had style.

"We have to talk, Sara," Grissom said.

"Not until after the funeral," she said.

He broached the subject carefully. "How long can you stay in town?"

"I'm going back day after tomorrow. I have an early-morning flight."

That meant her only free time would be the afternoon and evening after the funeral. That alarmed him.

"But you will make time for us to sit down together?" he said.

"Yes," she said. "I will."

Grissom began feeling sick to his stomach. There were so many reasons why.


	2. Chapter 2

I should have noted earlier that this story is rated M for language and strong adult content.

I just checked my investment portfolio, and I still own nothing remotely related to CSI.

Bertrand Russell's quote is owned by his estate, I suppose. It also belongs to the ages.

Don't let anything discourage you from posting reviews.

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**Chapter 2.**

Grissom arrived at the funeral home exactly at 4 p.m., dressed in a dark blue suit, a cobalt blue dress shirt and a gray-and-navy striped tie. He sat on a low brick wall beside the front door, waiting for Sara to arrive. Nick pulled up at 4:33. When Grissom saw Sara emerge from the passenger seat, he wasn't sure he could breathe.

Except for slightly reddened eyes and tear stains on her face, she looked wonderful. Great color, radiant skin, shining hair, perhaps a pound or two of additional weight, which she needed. Sara had been eating next to nothing before she left and had dropped weight she shouldn't have lost.

_She's thriving without me_, Grissom thought, and the thought hurt.

Grissom stood, and Sara saw him. She smiled, and his gut hollowed out. She walked straight to him. He held out his hand. She took it and moved close.

"You looked wonderful, Sara," he said.

"Thank you," she said. "You look good, too. But tired."

He shrugged.

She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She let his hand slide out of hers, turned and went into the funeral home. Nick followed. Grissom could see that he had been crying, as well. Nick nodded, acknowledging Grissom's presence, and disappeared inside. Fading relationships were not foremost in Nick's mind on this day.

Grissom trailed behind. The first person he sought out was Catherine. They embraced, and she sobbed into Grissom's shoulder. He stroked her hair and whispered that he would always be available to her and to Lindsay, and if they needed anything, all she had to do was ask. She held on tightly, and he was content to let her lay off her grief on him. He would hold her until she decided to let go.

When Catherine finally turned to Nick, Grissom paid his respects to Warrick's grandmother, his only living relative, and then, with great difficulty, stopped beside Warrick's open casket. The funeral home had put Warrick in a dress shirt and tie, clothes he never wore except to make a court appearance. But they covered up the two bullet holes in his throat. Grissom was thankful for that. He would not have wanted Warrick's grandmother to see the wounds.

Though Grissom had been raised a Roman Catholic, he had left the church as soon as he was old enough to start making decisions for himself. Organized religion, systems requiring great leaps of faith, didn't fit with his scientific mind. He wasn't an atheist by any means. To flatly deny the existence of God was to be as dogmatic as those who insisted without proof that God was real.

He recalled the words of Sir Bertrand Russell, who was asked once what he would say if, when he died, he was confronted by the God whose existence he had denied for so many years. Without hesitation Russell replied, "I would say to him, 'Sir, you did not give me enough evidence.'" Grissom shook his head. It always came down to the evidence, didn't it?

As he looked at Warrick's body, he promised the remains of the troubled young man that his killer would be found, and the crime lab populated with those who loved and admired Warrick would build an iron-tight case against the murderer.

_He won't get away from us, Warrick. I promise._

Grissom left the casket and sat in the back of the room, watching the mourners, watching Sara. Brass came and sat beside him

"How're you doing?" Brass asked.

Grissom arched an eyebrow. "Couldn't be better," he said with obvious sarcasm. "You?"

"Why don't you come over to the Bellagio with me, see to last-minute arrangements?" Brass said.

Grissom didn't respond. He couldn't take his eyes off Sara.

"Come on, Gil," Brass said. "Stop torturing yourself."

Now Grissom turned to his friend, held his eyes a second, then dropped his chin and nodded, almost imperceptibly. He got up then and followed Brass out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

All previous disclaimers still apply.

All previous ratings still apply.

This chapter is longer. It will have to hold you until tomorrow. I need to get some real work done tonight.

**Chapter 3.**

The entire team had been at the dinner, including lab techs past and present. They sat at a single long table. A few drinks into the evening loosened emotions and inhibitions, and everyone started telling their favorite Warrick Brown stories. Some were incredibly sad, others incredibly funny.

"The first year Warrick came to the lab, he and I were out on a case together and got a tip that a key piece of evidence was in this rundown apartment a block over," Brass said. "The source also told us the perps were at the apartment at that moment cleaning out. So Warrick and I went racing over there. We called for a battering ram and backup, but when we got to the scene, we figured we didn't have time to wait. Warrick took a step back and tried to kick down the door, but the wood was so rotten, his foot went right through and he couldn't get it out. So he's standing there on one leg, wide open to some serious permanent damage if anybody'd taken a shot through the door in the vicinity of his leg. When the cops finally get there, Rick's hopping on one foot while I've got my arms around his waist trying to pull him free. They laughed their asses off at our expense."

"What happened to the suspects?" Sara asked with amusement in her voice. Grissom thought he'd never heard a sound so sweet.

"Oh, they got out a window and down a fire escape," Brass said. "Just as well. We didn't have a warrant, so any evidence we got would have been tossed. But for a year after that, every time Warrick and I worked a scene together, I always asked him if he wanted to take the door." Brass's voice cracked, and Grissom saw his eyes glisten. Brass lowered his voice, almost talking to himself. "I'm gonna miss the hell out of that man."

The talk began to fade into background noise for Grissom. He couldn't take his eyes off Sara, but every time she glanced at him she held his gaze for only a few seconds before looking away. They were sitting nearly at opposite ends of the table, whether by accident or calculation on her part Grissom didn't know. Nick sat to her right, Greg to her left. Grissom struggled to ignore the impulse to order Greg to change seats with him.

Nearly everyone was so wrapped up in memories of Warrick – appropriately so – that only Brass and Al Robbins noticed Grissom's agony. Neither had the power to do anything to help.

**xxxxxxx**

When Grissom brought Hank back from his walk, he went right to the bedroom and stripped out of his clothes. He noticed a smear of lipstick and tear stains on the right shoulder of his jacket, reminders of Catherine's emotions at the funeral home. He would take the jacket to the cleaners when he got around to it. He had another suit to wear to the funeral the next day.

Physically weary and emotionally spent, Grissom prepared for bed and stripped down to his boxers. He started to take his usual side of the king-sized bed and thought better of it. He walked around and slipped under the covers on Sara's side.

_What used to be Sara's side._

Although the sheets had been washed many times since she left, he imagined he could still catch her scent. He fell into a troubled sleep filled with troubled dreams of Sara.

_Grissom listens intently to the words Doc Robbins is saying as he explains his findings after the autopsy of Debbie Marlin. He shows Grissom a metal bowl with three chunks of bloody tissue lying in it. "She died of a broken heart," Robbins says. Grissom isn't getting it. He is too distracted by the body on the metal slab. A young woman, early 30s, long brunette hair, so similar to another who is slowly laying claim to his heart. Grissom's male ego (along with other parts of him) desperately want to act on the mutual admiration and attraction that draw him to Sara; the professional part of him overrules time and again. They are in supervisor/subordinate positions, and to act on his instinct would be the end of Grissom's career, the very definition of who he is. So he allows his professional side win. But as he looks down on Debbie Marlin, he realizes how much his professional side is costing him, and still, as he will confess later that day, he can't change. Suddenly Greg crashes through the morgue door, breathless. He is crying. "Her n-name isn't Debbie," he says, choking on his words. "That's really Sara." Grissom stumbles away from the table, shaking his head, insisting that Greg has to be wrong. Greg holds the proof in his hand and extends it toward Grissom. "The DNA," he said. "The evidence doesn't lie. Sara's gone, Grissom. You never gave her a chance." Grissom glances at the page and then back to the body on the slab. "I'll be in the lab," he says as he pushes through the morgue door._

_Flash forward a year. Grissom and Sara are investigating a grisly murder in a mental institution. In an unforgivable breakdown of protocol, Grissom leaves Sara alone at a nurses' station while he goes in search of a set of keys to open a stack of locked drawers. One of the patients, Adam Trent, enters the nurses' station and traps Sara. When Grissom returns with a maintenance man and the wrong keys, he watches helplessly through a window as Trent holds a piece of sharpened pottery to Sara's neck. Sara tries to fight, but she's overmatched. Grissom is pleading with the maintenance man to get the door open. Grissom finally kicks it in, but he is too late. As he watches in gut-wrenching horror, Trent slices Sara's throat open, and her life spills over her clothes and to the floor. As security pulls Trent away, a weeping Grissom kneels beside Sara, cradling her head and shoulders in his arms, oblivious to blood soaking his shirt and pants. Sara raises a hand and grabs Grissom's collar, pulling his face to hers. "It's fine, Gil," she said. "I'm fine. Go back to work." And then she is gone. He kisses her forehead gently and lays her on the floor. He stands then, picking up his forensics kit, and heads out the door. "I'll be at the lab if anyone is looking for me," he says to the security guard as he strides down the corridor._

_Nick Stokes is kidnapped and buried alive. When he is found at the last minute, half eaten up by fire ants and lying on top of high explosives that will detonate if he moves, the team pulls him to safety. Grissom is breathing hard, calling paramedics to get Nick on a gurney and to the hospital as quickly as possible. Sara is standing nearby. Grissom goes to her. She is crying. She is trembling. "Are you all right?" Grissom asks. "I'm fine," Sara says. "Really, I'm fine." "Good," Grissom replies. "I've got to get to the lab."_

_Sara is kidnapped by the Miniature Killer and left in the desert to die. She gets out from under the overturned Mustang moments before she will drown in the flash flood. She wanders the desert in 110-degree heat, under a blazing sun, for 15 hours before she is found, unconscious, without a pulse, horrifically dehydrated and dying. Grissom climbs into the evac helicopter that will carry her to a hospital. He takes her hand, willing her to wake up. She opens her eyes as the helicopter sets down. "Are you okay, Sara?" Grissom asks as she is wheeled toward the emergency room. "I'm fine, Gil." "Good," he says. "I'll see you back at the lab."_

Grissom opened his eyes to the first light of dawn, but instead of getting up, he lay rigid, trying to remember every detail of his nightmare. They came back to him, not with perfect clarity, but in sufficient detail that he could draw the inevitable conclusion.

"I have been such a blind, fucking idiot," he whispered to no one.

_And at a very high price, Grissom. You've lost Sara."_

**xxxxxxx**

It gets really sad from here.


	4. Chapter 4

Same old disclaimers; nothing changed overnight.

Same old ratings caution, though not for this section.

For this and the next two segments, bring Kleenex, just in case.

**xxxxxxxx**

**Chapter 4.**

Nick brought Sara to Warrick's funeral, just as he had brought her to the viewing the day before. Grissom waited outside the church, as he had waited outside the funeral home. Sara saw him and walked over. Again, she kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"I'm sorry for everything," he said, feeling helpless.

"After the service. After the reception," she said. She turned away without another word.

The funeral service wasn't long, but it was moving. Grissom got wrapped up in the ceremony, the music, the emotion. He offered the first eulogy. His voice cracked twice, and he felt no shame in that. When he glanced at Sara, he saw the emotion threatening to overwhelm him had brought her to tears. She was totally focused on him and not even trying to stop crying. He thought he saw her flash a small smile of encouragement, and just as quickly he dismissed it as his imagination. When Grissom finished and walked back to his pew, he saw that everyone in the church had been moved by his words. Every eye glistened. It didn't make him proud, especially, but he was glad he had touched so many, as Warrick had touched him.

Later, as Grissom listened to Nick's words for Warrick, he felt the hot sting of tears pushing into his eyes. He swallowed hard, swallowed them back. But he allowed himself to feel the grief.

At the cemetery, he hung back behind the other mourners. He hated funerals, especially this part. They did nothing for the dead. They provided comfort for some of the living. They provided no comfort for him.

By the time of the reception, Grissom was numb. He simply nodded at those who approached him to tell him how touched they were by his eulogy. He declined food. He declined a drink. He had abandoned the morning's events to thoughts of how he would spend whatever time Sara would give him. He already knew how their meeting would end. He was trying to figure out how to survive it.

Sara put her arm through his and leaned into him a bit as they walked to his car. His arm went hot where her body touched him. It had always been that way. Her touch set him on fire. His mind tried to revisit their intimacies, but he forced the thoughts away. The memories of what had been and would never be again were too painful.

"Did you eat at the reception, or would you like to go somewhere for a late lunch?" he asked.

"I'm not really hungry," Sara said. "What I would like to do is see Hank."

So they went to his new apartment, a place she'd never seen. Hank hadn't forgotten. He went nuts when he recognized her, and she got down on the floor and played with him until he quieted down. Grissom couldn't help but smile.

"He's overdue for a walk," he said.

"I'll go with," Sara replied.

"Okay. I'll give you the grand tour of the apartment when we come back." Grissom had moved after Sara left, unable to return home day after day to the place they shared, with so many of her things still there, but with no her there.

Neither was ready to talk about their situation while they were out with the dog. Mostly, they talked about Warrick, Gedda, the investigation of Warrick's murder. Grissom filled in the blanks that Nick had left out, possibly by accident, possibly because they were too painful for Nick to put to words. It had been Nick who heard the gunshots. It had been Nick who found Warrick slumped against the steering wheel of his car. It had been Nick who pressed his hands over Warrick's wounds, trying fruitlessly to staunch the blood flow as police and paramedics raced to the scene. Sara teared up again, for the agony of the dead and the living.

When they got back to the apartment, Grissom showed Sara around. She liked the modern, industrial look. She liked the openness. She had seen all the insects before. She liked them, too.

"All your things are here, Sara," Grissom said quietly. "I brought everything when I moved."

"So you told me when you sent me the key to the place," she said.

Grissom frowned. He had forgotten.

"It was sweet," Sara said. "You told me as long as I didn't return the key, you could hold out hope that I would use it someday."

"I meant that, Sara." Grissom's heart clutched. Was she going to reach into her pocket and hand it back now? He relaxed marginally when she didn't.

"You want some coffee?" he said. She nodded. As he prepared the pot in the kitchen he decided to open their conversation with a question.

"So how are you doing?" he said. "Have you made any progress in dealing with … with the things that were bothering you?"

"Actually, yes," she said. "I've come to terms with the fact that my mother and I will never be best friends. She will never be a mother to me. She is incapable of loving anyone but herself, and after what she went through, I think I understand. A little. But at least we opened a dialogue.

"I found out where my father was buried. As I expected, my mother didn't have the money or the desire to give him a proper funeral, so he was buried in a pauper's grave. I paid to have the body exhumed and reburied in a private plot with a marker. I bought the plot beside it for Mom and prepaid her funeral. It's strange, but it made me feel better."

"It was incredibly thoughtful of you," Grissom said. "And that's a lot to accomplish."

"I also saw some friends and former colleagues, an aunt I was close to once, though she's now suffering from Alzheimer's and hasn't a clue who I am. God, that's an awful disease. I reconnected a little with her kids, my first cousins. But we don't have a lot in common. So I left San Francisco and went down the coast until I found a beach I liked with a B&B I liked, and I stayed there for two weeks. It was restful and peaceful and calmed my mind. I even toyed with the idea of moving there, but I realized after two weeks there wouldn't be enough to keep me busy even part of the time. So I went back to San Francisco just in time to get your call … about Warrick."

Grissom walked to Sara with two mugs of coffee and handed one to her. She sipped it and smiled.

"You always made the best," she said.

"It's the bean, and the water," he said.

They talked some more about San Francisco, about Grissom and the Crime Lab. She pressed him for personal and professional news of her friends there. And so they danced around the real issue for several hours. They even managed to laugh a little.

Finally, Sara brought it all home.

"You haven't asked me the only question you really want to ask," she said. It was a statement. And Grissom couldn't deny it.

His face became a mask of anxiety and anticipated pain.

"No," he said, almost whispering. "I haven't."

"Why?" she asked.

He rubbed a hand across his face and looked her directly in the eye.

"Because," he said, "I'm terrified of the answer."

**xxxxxxx**

And so he should be terrified. But I ask you to bear with me for a few more segments. And should you be moved to review, good or bad, please feel free. j


	5. Chapter 5

**A-N/** I wasn't going to drop this whole thing on you at once, but I've had a number of emails despairing of things ever getting better between Gil and Sara. The angst reaches its absolute peak in this segment. There are two more coming, but it should be a little easier to breathe through them. Bear with me.

All previous disclaimers still apply.

**xxxxxxx**

**Chapter 5.**

Before Sara could respond, Grissom stood and began pacing the room, occasionally stopping to pick up a photo, or an insect display, not so much because they added anything to his words but because they kept his hands busy.

"God, Sara, there are so many things I want to say I'm sorry for," he began. "I think I've lived my whole life with my head up my ass. I've been so afraid of commitment, so afraid of letting people know me, so afraid of, of getting hurt, that my instinct has been to hurt first and walk away. It's not like I meant to do it. I just didn't know how _not_ to do it."

He looked at Sara to see if she was getting what he was confessing. Her face remained impassive, but he had her attention.

"There were so many times you were hurting, and I knew you were hurting, and I wanted to help you, and I didn't know how. When I took the month's sabbatical, I knew you were in pain. I never even asked you why. All I felt was the weight of Greg nearly getting killed by a bunch of street thugs, Charlotte Summerville crucified in a Catholic church, that horrifically tragic case involving the pedophile, Carl Fisher, the miniature killings. I was getting migraines by the day. I could feel myself burning out. So I turned my back on you and left. It was so selfish. You told me you were fine, and it was easier to deal with my needs if I convinced myself to believe you.

"When Natalie Davis kidnapped you and I thought we'd never find you alive – if we ever found you at all – I nearly went insane with worry and grief. I vowed if I ever got you back, I would never let you get away from me again. But I did. I let you move to swing, away from me, away from the team that had been your friends and colleagues since you got here. And I was too blind to see how that separation drove you to your knees. Again, you said you were fine, and it was just easier for me to believe that. We were together. We were happy. At least I was. I couldn't see beyond that."

He rubbed his forehead. "No, that's not true," he said. A whispered admission. "I didn't want to see beyond that."

"Grissom …" Sara said.

"Don't," he said. "I've got to get this out before I lose my nerve."

She relented.

"We didn't let you take enough time – I didn't give you enough attention after the ordeal in the desert. We let you come back to work too soon. I should have expected emotional fallout, but I wasn't watching closely enough. Because of the shift change, we were seeing less of each other at work, less of each other at home. You were wearing down, and it was all lost on me. I should have done something to keep you away from Hannah West." He threw up his hands. "God, there are so many 'should-haves' I could spend the rest of my life counting them up and not get through everything. Every single one of them is tearing me apart. But now it's too late to fix them.

"When you left, and I kept asking why, the reasons began to pile up, given my perfect 20/20 hindsight. I wanted you back so badly. I wanted to come after you. I nearly did once. I bought a plane ticket for San Francisco and made it as far as the gate at McCarran before I got cold feet. You said you didn't want me to follow you. What if you meant it, and I made things worse? I felt I needed to give you the space you asked for, and if I did, maybe that would be enough. I had hope. But then the weeks became months and the months multiplied, and now I know the hope was futile. And you know what's so damned ironic?"

Grissom moved over and sat next to Sara on the sofa. He took her hands in his and looked at her face. She waited for him to answer his own question.

Finally, he did. "All those years I pushed you away, discouraged you from pursuing me, do you know why I did it?"

She shook her head.

"I hid behind the supervisor/subordinate argument, but that was a lie. I was never afraid to test that box. I did it because I was afraid, given our age difference, that some day you'd leave me for a younger, stronger man. I loved you so much, even back then, I knew if I lost you I would never be whole again. I wasn't sure I could survive it. It was easier never to let you close. But there came a point – that terrifying night in the mental hospital – when I had to acknowledge how dangerous our lives can be. We can't afford to let opportunities languish and risk losing something precious without ever having possessed it. So I lowered my barriers and drew you in. I allowed myself to love you without hesitation or reservation. And you returned my love and then some. And that's the cruel irony of it, Sara. In the end, you didn't leave me. I abandoned you when you needed me most. _I_ pushed _you_ away. I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I have no right to ask you to believe me. But it is true. I swear it is. All I can ask is that someday you find it in your heart to forgive me."

He had to stop. If he said any more, he would fall apart.

He let go of Sara then and dropped his head into his hands. He had never felt such despair in his life.

**xxxxxxx**

"Thank you for telling me," Sara said. She put her hand on his shoulder. "I think you should take me back to my hotel now."

_Now? Already?_

But he didn't argue. What was the point? He simply got up, picked up his car keys and held the door for her. For a moment, he thought she looked surprised. Didn't she understand? She came here wanting to say good-bye to him. He was trying to make it easier for her. For once in his sorry life, he was putting her feelings first.

**xxxxxxxx**

The 20-minute drive passed in silence, both Sara and Grissom lost in thought. He pulled up in front of the Tropicale, unbuckled his seat belt and turned to face her. She reached out to caress his cheek, and he took her hand.

"Could I come up for a while?" he said.

Sara sighed. "That's not a good idea, Grissom. There's no sense prolonging this. Let's just make a clean break."

He watched her face, her eyes. He found no doubts there. She meant what she said.

He swallowed hard and shrugged, not in indifference, but in resignation. "Let me know where to send your things, and I'll get them back to you," he said.

The sadness in the car was palpable.

"There is nothing in the world I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you," Grissom said. "To hold you, to comfort you, to make love to you, to provide for you, to make you happy. I meant it with all my heart when I asked you to marry me." He shook his head sadly and looked away. "I'll never have any of that now, and I know it's my fault." He looked back into her eyes. "But know this, Sara. Not a day will go by that I don't think of you, that I don't long for you and miss you terribly, that I don't love you. I do love you. That will never stop. Neither will the pain of the knowledge of how deeply I hurt you." He sighed. "I wish you health. I wish you joy."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Then, ever so lightly, he kissed her lips.

When he pulled back, he saw the tears glistening in her eyes and felt them glistening in his. She undid her seatbelt, opened the door and stepped out. He watched her cross the hotel driveway. He watched as the bell captain held open the door for her, as she glanced back over her shoulder at him one last time, as she turned and walked into the lobby. He tried to keep her in sight as she threaded her way through the crowd toward the elevators. And then she was gone.

"Good-bye, Sara," he whispered.

He turned in his seat and rested his head on the top of the steering wheel.

Deep in his chest something shriveled and froze and lodged itself at the center of his soul.

**xxxxxxx**

As I said, it can't get much worse than this. And there are two chapters to go. What happens? You might be sorry if you don't stay the course.

j


	6. Chapter 6

A short scene to take us to the finale.

All previous ratings and disclaimers remain operative.

**xxxxxxx**

**Chapter 6.**

Grissom didn't remember driving home. But when he got there he went straight to the liquor cabinet. He found a bottle of Chivas and poured two fingers into a glass. He drank it straight down, feeling it warm his throat. He poured more and carried the glass to his favorite chair. He was about to sit down when someone knocked on his door.

_Go away. Please leave me alone._

The knock persisted. Grissom opened the door reluctantly and found Brass standing there, a bottle of Chivas in hand. Brass noticed that Grissom had started ahead of him.

"Great minds think alike," Brass said. "You gonna invite me in, or am I going to drink alone out here?"

"I thought you always said you couldn't find solutions to problems at the bottom of a bottle," Grissom said.

"Solutions, no. Numbness, yes. And friends shouldn't let friends get numb alone."

Grissom stood aside for him.

Brass found a tumbler in the kitchen. He poured scotch for himself and walked to where Grissom was sitting. He took the sofa, and put the bottle where either of them could reach it. He watched Grissom for a time. Grissom wouldn't make eye contact.

"So," he said after a moment, "I take it things didn't go so well."

Grissom took a shuddering breath. "It's over," he said.

"I'm really sorry, Gil. You want me to call her?"

Grissom shook his head vehemently. "Maybe there will come a day we can at least be friends," he said. "Pushing her now would spoil even that meager possibility." Grissom looked at Brass suddenly. "How did you know I was here alone and things didn't go well?"

Brass looked sheepish. "I staked out the place," he said. "I saw you come home with her. After a couple of hours passed, I thought maybe you were working things out. But the expression on both your faces when you came out told me otherwise. I simply waited for you to come home again. If you hadn't come home, I'd have started searching bars for you." Brass grimaced. "I didn't want you to be alone tonight."

Grissom took a long pull at his drink. He really did want to get numb.

"She was the best thing that ever happened to me, Jim, and it's as if I set out to fuck it up. Every decision I made was wrong. It's not as if you didn't try to tell me. Catherine, too. I was either too stupid to listen or too incompetent to deal with it."

"Affairs of the heart are complicated things," Brass said. "They're almost like religion, requiring great leaps of faith that if you follow your instincts, they'll take you where you want to go. Great leaps of faith don't mesh well with your mental precision and your obsession with facts in evidence."

Grissom remembered Warrick's viewing. He'd had a very similar thought then.

"Do you think I set out to sabotage the relationship?" he said, sounding incredulous. "I mean subconsciously? Am I that afraid of personal commitments?"

"No," Brass said. "You've made those personal commitments to me, to every single member of your team. You're not just their supervisor. You are friend, confidant, teacher, confessor. You're like the neighborhood parish priest to all of us."

Grissom drank again and shook his head. "But not to Sara."

"Well, the commitment to Sara was a lot more difficult, a lot more complex. If I were to describe you two to in human psychiatric terms, I'd say your relationship was manic-depressive. Very high highs and very low lows. You are both super-intelligent. You played too many head games with each other. You outsmarted yourselves. Maybe a shrink could have helped you through it, I don't know."

"I guess we'll never find out."

They drank and talked about lost opportunities for nearly two hours. Neither seemed to be able to get drunk. Grissom finally gave up.

"I think I need to go to bed," he told Brass. "Are you okay to drive? Maybe you should crash on the couch."

Brass nodded and got up. "I'm fine," he said. "I wanted to get drunk, but it doesn't seem to be working." He picked up the half-empty bottle. "Maybe I should return this for a refund."

He put the bottle down again. "I'll come back another night and we'll finish it off," he said. He walked to the door and turned around.

"I'm really sorry, Gil."

Grissom just nodded.

**xxxxxxx**

One to go. Let me know when you're ready to find out how it all ends.


	7. Chapter 7

Good grief, I can't let this go on any longer. The world will suffer a shortage of tissue. This will wrap it up, folks. I've had a ball doing it. I'll start posting the other two stories tomorrow.

All previous disclaimers, ratings, etc., still apply. Especially the M rating on this one.

**xxxxxx**

**Chapter 7.**

It took a while, but when Grissom finally dropped off to sleep, it was a deep sleep, and the dreams found him: Graphic images of all the ways he hurt Sara and new images dredged from the recesses of his subconscious. Each time he begged for forgiveness, and each time his plea was ignored. In one version, he became so despondent he committed suicide. This man who hated guns put his service weapon to his temple and pulled the trigger. In other versions, he cried. Mostly, though, he just withdrew from the world, letting his job, his friends, everything about his life drift into shambles.

At one point Grissom awoke, thirsty. He looked at the clock. It was 3:42 a.m. He wondered if Sara was up yet, preparing to take her early-morning flight. He got up and drank a tumbler of water in the bathroom. On his way back to bed, he noticed Hank had climbed onto the bedspread and watched his master with baleful eyes. Grissom knew dogs could recognize their masters' distress. He was certain the vibes Hank picked up from him were most troubling. He comforted the dog for a minute, then stretched out again under the covers. Hank moved over next to him and put his head on Grissom's shoulder. Grissom stroked the dog's head until both drifted off to sleep.

The nightmares began again, so vivid Grissom was unaware on any level that Hank had lifted his head and whimpered. He didn't feel it when the boxer left the bed for the living room or when he returned. Grissom's first semi-conscious impression of activity in his bed was a soft breath on his neck, a soft touch on the hollow of his throat, something warm and damp rimming his ear.

The sensations were erotic. He assumed the ministrations came from his dog, and even semi-conscious, Grissom recognized the need to end them.

_This is just wrong on so many levels._

He turned on his side, pressing his offended ear into the pillow. But the touches continued, in the hollow of his shoulder, in the soft tissue under his chin, softly descending his chest …

His eyes snapped open. The eyes that gazed into his were brown, but they were not canine. This had to be another dream. And it was torturing him.

But then the mouth under the eyes covered his mouth. The tongue brushed his lips, asking for entry. He allowed it. He reached up and surrounded the slim human body with his arms, pulling it to him, on top of him. She was naked. Her breasts crushed on his chest, her hips on his hips, his growing erection fitting so nicely against her arousal. They kissed as if they were attempting to swallow one another.

When they stopped for just a moment, she pulled back so they could focus on each other's faces.

"Sara," he whispered.

Her mouth smiled, and the smile traveled all the way to her eyes. He covered the smile with his mouth, and she gave him access. Without his lips once leaving her skin, he turned her onto her back and lay over her, kissing his way to her neck, and she groaned in pure pleasure. He moved to her breasts, stimulating them with his lips, his tongue and his teeth. He continued to massage her with his thumbs as his mouth moved to her navel, and she was writhing beneath him. But he wasn't ready to stop. He moved down her abdomen to the inner parts of her thighs and then up again, to the spot that would drive her wild. And it worked.

"Gil, please," she said. "Now."

"Not yet," he said. He slowed his tongue, but he didn't stop. The third time she begged for him, he rose up and fitted his erection tight against her, but not inside her. He began moving up and back, skin against skin, until she was nearly crazed with sensation.

"You're not inside me," she said into his ear.

"I know," he replied.

"Gil, I can't wait."

"You shouldn't. I want you to come for me now, while I'm watching your face."

The orgasm overwhelmed her at that moment. She cried out and pressed herself to him in a vice grip. When her spasms began to diminish, he slid into her and began the stimulation again, slowly at first. She began responding immediately. He couldn't hold off much longer and began pumping harder and faster. She matched him move for move.

"Now?" he said.

"Oh, God, yes," she said.

They climaxed together, with some considerable noise.

They were covered in perspiration, entangled in each other and in the sheets. He lay on top of her, still inside her, and willed the moment never to end. But it had to, and when they rolled apart, neither spoke for a time.

He finally broke the silence.

"I thought we were just going to talk," he said.

Sara smiled. "That was yesterday."

He chuckled, found her breasts and began moving his thumbs around and over them. She groaned.

Then he remembered. He glanced over his shoulder at the clock. It was almost 5 a.m. He dropped back on the pillow and, quite unbidden, a small sob erupted from his chest.

"Gil?" Sara sounded worried. Her face appeared over his. She saw a tear leak from the outside corner of his eye onto his face, and she wiped it away. "What is it?"

"You said you had an early flight."

She smiled and bent to kiss his eye. "I did, 'did' being the operative word."

Grissom became almost giddy. "You're not going back?"

"Well, yes, I am. But you're coming with me."

This was something he hadn't considered. Could he leave the Las Vegas Crime Lab and live in San Francisco with Sara? What would he do? Well, he could teach. It was something that always appealed to him. Of course he could go. And he would go, wherever Sara wanted to be. This time when he said he would never let her out of his life, he meant it.

"I'll do it," he said. "I'll teach somewhere."

She laughed. "Thank you for that. But I didn't mean permanently. We'll drive to San Francisco to get the things I have back there, and then come back here."

He felt a little relief, and then it dawned on him. "I have a better idea," he said. "We'll get married here, then we'll fly to Hawaii or Fiji or Alaska on our honeymoon and come back by way of San Francisco."

She rested her head on his shoulder and stroked his chest. "I like the way you think."

They were silent again, until Grissom couldn't hold back the question any longer.

"What made you change your mind?" he said.

"About what?"

"About me? About us? You were so certain just a few hours ago that we were finished."

She ran a finger around his left nipple. She felt it harden. The rest of him wouldn't be far behind.

"You changed my mind," she said.

He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow in question.

"I'd never seen you the way I saw you this, uh, yesterday afternoon," she said. "You put everything out there on the table. You didn't hold back anything. It sounds hokey, but you exposed your soul to me, and I liked what I saw. I felt for the first time ever as if I really _knew_ you. You let me all the way in. I know how hard that must have been for you, what a sacrifice you made to tell me the truth. And you did it despite the fact you knew it wouldn't change anything. It was the most selfless act I've ever experienced. You assumed I was leaving you, and you were trying to make it as easy for me as you could. You were trying to spare me more pain by exposing your own."

"You _weren't_ going to leave me?"

"Yeah, I was pretty sure I was going to end the relationship. Not because of you. Because of me. Nobody has ever opened up completely to me. Probably because I find it so hard to reciprocate. That doesn't say much for me, and I decided I wasn't going to burden you with me any more. Or anyone else, ever. But my failings didn't seem to matter to you. You were willing to give without asking anything in return. That makes you a pretty hard guy to leave."

He traced the contours of her face with his hand.

"I want you any way I can get you," he said. "And I want you forever. I've always told you that."

"I finally believe it."

He smiled. "You tired? It's been a rough few days. Maybe you should get some sleep."

"I'll probably catch a nap," she said, "but I need to return a favor for someone first."

He wasn't sure what she meant until she started kissing him again, starting with his eyes, his ears, his mouth and working her way down his body as he had worked his way down hers. When her lips reached his chest, her hand reached between his legs and began massaging. Between her mouth and her hand, he was helpless. Even more so when she replaced her hand with her mouth.

"Oh, my God, Sara."

At the last possible moment, he pulled her up his body and rolled her over. He entered her and stroked her slowly and gently, letting her desire set the pace. It didn't take her long to reach the point where she demanded that he move harder, deeper, faster. They finished together in a crashing series of orgasms. Totally spent in every sense of the word.

When they caught their breaths, Grissom laughed. "You know, I'm an old guy, Sara. I hope I don't wear out on you."

She snuggled into his shoulder. "You know what they say, 'Always use it; never lose it."

"Close enough," he said.

Sara used her finger to draw circles on his abdomen, always making sure the tracks passed over the sensitive area beneath his navel. "You know, maybe we should take a shower now."

"Sara!" he groaned. "Take pity."

Now she laughed. "Okay. Nap now. Shower later."

He held her tightly in his arms, letting the soft warmth of her breath against his neck soothe him into sleep.

All his dreams were good.

#

5


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